Apparatus and Method for Collaboratively Analyzing Data from Disparate Data Sources
A server has a data processing module with instructions executed by a processor to maintain a collection of data units, where the collection of data units includes data from multiple data sources. A collection of discussion threads is maintained. Each discussion thread is associated with a data unit and each discussion thread uniquely identifies different users and comments made by the different users.
1 . A server, comprising:
a data processing module with instructions executed by a processor to:
maintain a collection of data units, wherein the collection of data units includes data from multiple data sources; and
maintain a collection of discussion threads, wherein each discussion thread is associated with a data unit and each discussion thread uniquely identifies different users and comments made by the different users.
2 . The server of claim 1 wherein the data processing module includes instructions executed by the processor to store a state of a discussion thread using a version field of a data unit corresponding to the discussion thread.
3 . The server of claim 1 wherein the data processing module includes instructions executed by the processor to maintain permission settings in a data unit corresponding to a discussion thread, wherein the permission settings specify access to data in a data unit and access to a discussion thread.
4 . The server of claim 1 wherein the data processing module includes instructions executed by the processor to maintain an annotation of a visualization of data associated with the collection of data units.
5 . The server of claim 4 wherein the data processing module includes instructions executed by the processor to maintain the state of the annotation in a data unit.
6 . The server of claim 4 wherein the data processing module includes instructions executed by the processor to maintain the annotation at a specified hierarchical data dimension location displayed in multiple visualizations of the same data.
7 . The server of claim 1 wherein the data processing module includes instructions executed by the processor to send an alert to a user when a data value exceeds a specified threshold.
8 . The server of claim 1 further comprising:
a web application module to supply to a client an interface displaying:
a textual description of disparate data sources;
visualizations of data from the disparate data sources, wherein the visualizations harmonize data from the disparate data sources through an identified, common hierarchical dimension; and
a collaboration panel to facilitate online communications regarding the visualizations.
9 . The server of claim 8 wherein the web application module supplies to a client an interface displaying data filtering options.
10 . The server of claim 8 wherein the web application module supplies to a client an interface displaying data visualization options.
11 . The server of claim 10 wherein a selected data visualization option from the data visualization options automatically invokes an additional visualization of data from a data source, and wherein the additional visualization of data is accompanied by the collaboration panel with state information regarding the visualizations.
12 . The server of claim 8 wherein the identified, common hierarchical dimension is geography.
13 . The server of claim 8 wherein the identified, common hierarchical dimension is time.
14 . The server of claim 8 wherein the identified, common hierarchical dimension is a category.